Sewall went to a window to glower up at the bluffs, fading now into early dusk. From where Wil Dow sat mending tack he could see the glow on a distant mound to the northwest where lightning had struck and a stubborn strip of soft lignite coal had caught fire in a clay hillside. In the cool days the vein smoked like a little volcano. Every night it glowed red, like twilight. These winter evenings were long; even Wil Dow felt low.

Uncle Bill said, “It’s a great resort for thieves and cutthroats. Cowboy work—the cattle torture. I shall never like this country for a home.”

“Oh, Uncle Bill.”

“A man that could come here from New England and like it better than at home must have a depraved idear of life or hate himself or both.”

“Well I don’t hate myself and I don’t feel depraved.”

Mr. Roosevelt came in removing his heavy coat. Between painful coughs he said with great vehemence, “It’s a wild arcadian romance, the wonderful charm of this region. In Dakota we are geographically in the exact middle of the North American continent, did you know that?”

His asthma was acting up. He sprawled wheezing in his rocking chair, tired and grimy from the long day’s labors, and pulled out a volume of Swinburne from the row of books that stood fading on the south-facing windowsill. It democratically supported everything from the Bible to Ike Marvel. That ended the conversation for the moment. On the sill were Hawthorne and Lowell, Parkman and Bonner, Macon and Cooper, Keats and Tennyson, Craddock and Irving. They all were Roosevelt’s old friends. Wil Dow had been endeavoring to sample them but there was never time enough; he would begin to read after supper but his lids would droop and he would sleep after only a page or two—often as Roosevelt was only getting started for the evening, writing industriously in his journals under the yellow cone of the whale-oil table lamp. He was still writing that book.

He was keeping up his correspondence too. There were frequent letters from back East, some of them in what looked like female handwriting—more hands than one, from what Wil glimpsed. Roosevelt wrote regularly to his sister but there was someone else as well. When he read those scented notes there was a quality of thoughtfulness in his concentration that led Wil’s mind into varieties of interesting speculations.

Roosevelt cleaned his teeth and shaved every morning whether there was company or not. He washed his own clothes and took his turn feeding the horses, although it was true he rarely swamped the stables; that was left to Wil, as if he were the youngest—or perhaps it was just to remind them who was boss here.

Roosevelt sometimes spent part of an evening in the dark cellar developing his glass-plate photographs. Then, mildly stinking of chemicals, he would get into the rubber bathtub and soak, after which he would select a book and sit reading in his rocking chair while Dutch cooked up something to eat—often game of their own killing: grouse or ducks, deer or antelope. Roosevelt sometimes would make a remark about something he found in his book; he and Sewall would get into philosophical and intellectual arguments and Roosevelt would rock all around the room as he debated vehemently. Wil Dow, cleaning up after the meal, would listen with hungry interest. Uncle Bill was a rough man but not an ignorant one; he couldn’t spell—neither could Roosevelt—but you had to admire the breadth of his keen mind: when Roosevelt said something complimentary about the diplomatic skills of Talleyrand, Sewall was quick to scoff. “Tallyrand was a hypocrite and a liar. If that’s what a man requires for diplomacy then I want no part of it.” Then in the morning Wil would have to go to a book surreptitiously to look up “Tallyrand.”

Wil spent many a dull glum winter afternoon working cattle down the coulees toward fresh stands of curly buffalo grass—the staple winter feed of the Bad Lands. If there was an exceptionally weak animal he would take it, in the Mackinaw boat or across his saddle depending which side of the river he came from, into the barn and feed it hay.

All the while he was aware that Dutch Reuter was everywhere—mending fence, doctoring cattle, braiding leather, chopping wood. Dutch worked so hard that for a while he seemed to forget himself: the restless look went out of his eyes.

Then they had a visit from Pierce Bolan. The thick-chested yellow-haired Texan stood before the fire batting his hands together and said, “I have found a lot of dead sheep.”

Roosevelt said, “We’ve seen them too.”

Dutch Reuter said, “For Dakota, wrong kind of sheep.”

“You got that right for certain, Dutch,” said Pierce Bolan. “Merinos can’t survive this climate. But forget the sheep. They’re dead. It don’t matter. What does matter—they keep crowding in cattle all the time. Especially the Marquis. In a short time they will eat us all out. You notice how the Marquis’s cows graze one place down until food gets scarce and then they drive their cattle to where it is good without regard to whose range they’re eating out.”

Bill Sewall agreed. “I’ve had to chouse two, three dozen De Morès cattle off our ground just lately.” He pulled at his red beard. “I’m afraid the boss was led to believe there was more money in this than he will ever see.”

Roosevelt said cheerfully, “I shall prove you dead wrong about that, old chap.” He turned to Pierce Bolan. “It’s cold and it’s late. You’ll share our supper and spend the night, of course.”

At the break of day Pierce Bolan was first to leave the house—and first to return. “You folks got visitors. May want to arm yourselves.”

Roosevelt was finishing his breakfast. “What’s this?”

Wil Dow went to the window. He heard Bolan say, “Johnny Goodall and a crew. They’re turnin’ out a lot of cows. Lot of cows.”

A thin crust of frost crunched under their boots when the five men walked upriver. Roosevelt had distributed rifles and shotguns; Wil Dow felt the ominous weight of the over-and-under three-barrel gun. He bounced it nervously in the circle of his fist as he walked.

At the foot of Blacktail Creek—nearly at Roosevelt’s doorstep—half a dozen riders were dispersing cattle onto the bottoms. Pierce Bolan had not exaggerated. Wil Dow could not begin to count the animals. There was a sea of them.

He followed the boss’s lead. They walked down there straight up. No hesitation. Mr. Roosevelt made up in grit what he lacked in size. Wil Dow waited to see him go off like a rocket.

Johnny Goodall reined his horse expertly through a clump of cattle and came forward with his hands wide and empty save for the reins. He had the courtesy to dismount, so as to give the five men his eyes at a level—more or less; Johnny was taller than any of them.

Roosevelt said, “You’ve quite a number of cattle with you, Johnny.”

“Fifteen hundred head, sir.”

“I’ll ask you to keep moving them until they’re off my land.”

“I’ve got orders to fatten them here, sir.”

That was it, then. Wil Dow felt it like a fist in his belly. The glove had been thrown down: the challenge was here. He laid the gun across his forearm and eased his body a quarter-turn away so that the muzzle was lined up on Johnny Goodall.

Johnny gave him a glance, shook his head slightly, and paid him no further attention.

Roosevelt said in a surprisingly mild voice, “I suppose I’m to take this to mean Mr. De Morès is affronted by my continuing to employ Mr. Reuter.”

Uncle Bill Sewall thrust his beard toward Johnny Goodall. “You can’t climb the old man just because that French fool and his ambushers threw down on him.”

“I’m not climbing anybody, Bill. I’ve got no quarrel with Dutch.”

“Your boss surely thinks he does.”

“I herd cattle, Bill. That’s all I’m here for.”

In a voice that failed to conceal tautness behind its pretended calm, Pierce Bolan said, “Say, Johnny—this wouldn’t have anything to do with that letter to the judge, would it now?”